The Art of Subtlety
by etraytin
Summary: After both of them are left out in the cold during Requiem, Josh and Danny commiserate, compare notes, and come up with a plan.


Author's Note:This story is loosely based off a prompt from Anonymous who asked "i have a prompt for a story set in requiem where cj figures out that josh and donna are seeing each other and maybe confronts the two of them about it?" I've been sitting on this prompt for almost three weeks now, trying to figure out what to do with it. I just couldn't quite work my way into a confrontation scene with CJ during Requiem, who seems to be in an extremely conflict-averse mood, so I had to throw in a ringer to help out.

(If you want a pretty good "CJ confronts Josh on his relationship with Donna" scene, check out Timing, Degree, and Conviction, she actually gets a couple.) Hope you enjoy this story anyway. :)

…..

Josh stared at the White House from just outside the gate, his breath pearling faintly in the cold November air. It wasn't even close to midnight yet, but somehow it felt later. He knew that President Bartlet had meant it as encouragement when he'd reminded Josh that he and Santos were the future, while the Bartlet Administration and Leo were the past, but right now it just seemed to drop more weight on his shoulders. He wasn't ready to hold the future, not by himself, not with a president-elect who wouldn't take his counsel on even the simplest and most obvious of political questions. The White House was luminous and stately at night, a beacon for the country and the world, one that reduced the humans inside it to insignificance. All this time, all this work, and still he looked at the place and wondered if he'd be able to do any good at all there. He turned and walked away.

Less than a dozen yards from the gate, Josh was startled when someone abruptly fell into step with him. "Guess it must've been a pretty good wake." Danny Concannon was bundled up against the night air in a battered wool overcoat and an even more battered wool Notre Dame hat. With the beard, he could've passed for a homeless guy without too much effort, but that never seemed to bother him. "But you're probably tired about talking about that today."

"Pretty much," Josh admitted. Caution around reporters was ingrained in him, even before years of CJ's relentless hectoring about how to deal with the press, but Danny was an old friend. Two years older than Josh, he'd been doing graduate work at Harvard while Josh was an upperclassman, and Danny was just so damn affable that it was hard not to like him, even if he was a journalist hanging out with all the future political hacks. Friendship wasn't foolproof, it certainly hadn't protected Josh from the Secret Plan to Fight Inflation, but with the benefit of hindsight he could admit he'd deserved that one. He could tell when Danny was on a story and when he was just being friendly. "It was kind of a long day. What are you still doing out here, perfecting your hobo routine?"

"I was in the press room, just got done about ten minutes ago and saw you standing out here. You looked like a guy with a lot on his mind." They crossed the street against the light; at this hour there was nobody on the streets in this part of town.

"You were filing this late?" Josh asked. "Haven't you got anything better to do on a Friday night?"

Danny grimaced. "I had some plans, they fell through."

"The lady turned you down, huh?" Josh grinned.

"On the contrary, the lady asked first, but then proceeded to become unavailable, for reasons that are still not entirely clear," Danny admitted. He stopped walking and looked at Josh, his head cocked to one side. "Hey, is it true that you haven't hired Donna to the staff yet?"

Josh immediately tensed. "Where did you hear that?"

"Doesn't really matter," Danny shrugged. "It's just rumors floating around, and she mentioned to CJ today that she was homeless. If you're not bringing her on board, I've got some names I could give her," he explained. "Not that she'd need it, I'm sure she'll get a dozen offers as soon as people realize she's available."

"She's not-" Josh hated when his voice did that raising-half-an-octave thing. "She's not available, and you don't need to be giving her anybody's name for anything!" he insisted. "The election was three days ago, we've been busy!" He started to walk again, briskly.

"It's a fast-moving town, Josh," Danny reminded him. Part of Josh knew that Danny was winding him up, but Danny was good enough at it that it didn't really matter. "When there's somebody you absolutely need on your team, you can't wait around and think about it, you've gotta lock that down. I hear Sellner's already shopping for a new policy coordinator, that's a pretty good position."

"Sellner's not speaker of the house yet!" Josh's voice did the rising thing again, this time he didn't care. "He doesn't need to be hiring policy coordinators, and he definitely doesn't need to be sniffing around Donna! She's going to be part of the administration, I just have to figure it out first! I've got a few other things on my plate!"

"Ah-kay," Danny agreed mildly, his grin only partially hidden behind his beard.

Josh stewed over that for a minute. Bad enough that Sellner almost certainly would be speaker, there was no way he was going to poach Donna too. God, if he'd thought the conflicts of interest were bad before... "Hey, wait a second," he suddenly realized. "You said she told CJ today that she was homeless. Donna's staying with CJ tonight because she sublet her place. Your plans fell through at the last minute." He stopped and poked Danny in the chest. "Your plans were with CJ, and she blew you off because of Donna." Josh started laughing.

Danny grimaced. "It's really not that funny. You know how much time a Chief of Staff has for an actual date? You'll find out."

That was a sobering thought, but Josh refused to let it bring him down. "No, it's funny because I offered to let Donna stay at my place tonight, and she refused because of CJ. And so nobody's got any plans tonight, and it sucks, but you've gotta see the humor there."

It was enough to draw a reluctant smile from Danny. "There is a certain irony," he allowed.

"The good part is, I just won twenty dollars off Sam. I knew you two would eventually get together."

"I'd feel cheap and used," Danny replied mildly, "except for how well I cleaned up in the pool on you and Donna. Had to do some arguing that Election Day still counted as "before the end of the campaign," but I am both righteous and vindicated."

Josh's jaw dropped. "How the hell did you know-"

"There are ways to go about a relationship that are subtle, Josh," Danny counseled. "There are ways to be low-key, understated, sneaky, even. And then there's you and Donna in the middle of a hotel lobby full of campaign journalists, and you running after her to the elevator like a greyhound chasing a bunny." He laughed when Josh sputtered. "Of course, no real reason you had to be subtle. 'Santos campaign manager sleeps with senior campaign staffer who he's known for a a decade' isn't the sort of lede that moves papers."

"I wasn't- I didn't- I wasn't really thinking about that at the time," Josh admitted, raking a hand through his hair.

"Hard to blame you. And I'm happy for you!" Danny assured him. "Still a little pissed, though. If you'd been just a little more persuasive, we'd both be a lot happier tonight."

"Hey, I'm persuasive!" Josh protested. "I'm a master negotiator." He paused, lost in thought, then gave Danny a smile that most of Josh's colleagues had learned to fear. "Hey Danny, how do you feel about being the bad cop again?"

Donna curled up in her bed in CJ's guest room and stared at the clock as it ticked over into a new day. Four days now since the election. Four days with everything in flux, four days technically unemployed. Technically, hell. Four days where she wasn't sure she was even getting paid because nobody knew who was actually supposed to be in charge of the transition staff. She was pretty sure that it would be ironed out soon and she'd at least be paid for the work she was doing now, but what about in a month?What about after January 20th? She wished she'd had a chance to talk with Josh about what he was thinking, but she'd jumped the gun in asking CJ for a room, and there was no way she could've walked that back without CJ asking questions. Yes, it was true neither she nor Josh worked in the White House anymore, and yes it was true that CJ wasn't even the press secretary anymore, but for six years CJ had been at the top of Donna's secret "what would people think?" list, and that was hard to shake.

The quiet was suddenly shattered by a flurry of pounding against the front door. Donna startled, her heart racing from the unexpected noise and her leg protesting the sudden movement. What the hell? The noise repeated a second later. "Donna!" came a very familiar shout.

Donna tossed on her white terrycloth bathrobe and hurried out to the living room, where CJ was tying the belt of her garnet dressing gown while walking to the door. She gave Donna an inquiring look; Donna just shook her head.

"Donna?" came Josh's voice again.

She pulled the door open. "Joshua Lyman, are you drunk?" she demanded, then was startled again to see Josh and Danny both grinning at her. She snorted. "CJ, looks like we've got double trouble."

CJ joined her at the door. "Oh good lord. Get in here, both of you, before the neighbors call the police."

"We were going to throw snowballs at your window," Josh told Donna. "Sort of an homage."

"But then we realized your Secret Service agents would probably shoot us, and that would pretty much ruin the night," Danny added helpfully as they filed in and CJ shut the door. "Also we'd have had to find some snow."

"Were you in bed?" Josh asked suddenly, obviously just noticing Donna's attire.

Donna rolled her eyes. "It's after midnight, and it was kind of a long day."

"Huh, I guess that's true. You should get dressed."

"What, why?" Donna glanced over to where CJ and Danny were having an intense, whispered conversation on the other side of the room.

"Because CJ kicked Danny out so you could stay with her, and you didn't want to come over to my place because you worried what CJ would think, so now we have the perfect solution except for the fact that you probably shouldn't go out in your bathrobe because it's pretty cold." He gave her his most engaging grin, both dimples showing. "I miss you."

"Oh my god." Donna put her face in her hands, then peeked out just enough to get another look at CJ. She and Danny had finished their argument and were now watching the show, both of them looking unconscionably amused.

Josh took a step forward and put a finger on her chin, lifting it out of her hands. "We don't have to hide anything now," he reminded her. "Whatever we want to do is nobody's business but ours. And if you want to stay here that's okay, but I really would like you at my place." He stroked her cheek lightly with his thumb. "You're right this thing is hard to navigate, but it doesn't feel weird. It feels like something I should've done a long time ago."

She looked at him for a minute, then sighed and stepped into his arms, holding him tightly. "I don't understand," she murmured, "how you can be so completely socially inept sometimes, and still come up with the exact right thing to say other times."

"It's 'cause I'm a master negotiator, baby," he told her. She snorted into his shoulder, but she went to get dressed.

As soon as Donna left, Josh became aware of CJ and Danny both watching him. Danny gave him a surreptitious thumbs-up, but CJ looked thoughtful. "I hope you know what you're doing, Josh," she told him seriously.

Pretty much anybody else, he'd have blown them off with a glib comment, or gotten annoyed by the presumption. But this was CJ, who'd been there since the beginning and seen all the highs and lows and in-betweens. "I hope so too," he said honestly. "But I know what we were doing before wasn't right, and this feels a lot better than that. We're gonna try a little of that new-age crap and actually talk about our feelings and stuff."

"That's so crazy it just might work." CJ smiled then, the special one she reserved for her friends. "You look good together. But of course you know," she added, "that if you hurt her, the President's going to have your guts for garters. He's pretty fond of Donna."

"Well, that's nice and graphic," Josh complained. He ran both hands over his hair. "Hurting her's the last thing I want to do, god, CJ, you know that. But we've had a couple of good shots at each other this past year. All I can really do is try not to screw up too badly."

"That'll probably be enough," CJ allowed. "You can be very sweet when you put your mind to it."

"Plus she likes you," Danny offered sagely, sliding an arm around CJ's waist. She stiffened for just a second, then relaxed into it with a half-smile. "Goes a long way."

Donna came back then, dressed in her slightly rumpled day clothes and pulling her suitcase. She gave CJ an embarrassed smile. "I'm sorry I put you out like this, it was really nice of you-"

CJ waved her off with an easy grin. "It was no problem, I swear. Go on, have fun. Josh, try and get some sleep, okay? You look like hammered hell."

"Love you too, CJ," he quipped back, escorting Donna out the door with a light hand at the small of her back. The agent on the door nodded impassively to them both, disclosing no opinion on the night's events. Josh wondered how long it took to get that kind of poker face. "You ready, you got everything?" he asked Donna.

"Yep," she told him, stepping back and sliding her arm through his. "I think we're good."


End file.
